"Promising to address a point but then avoiding it by going on a long digression is a rhetorical device known as APOPLANESIS." --@HaggardHawks
“Muses!
Cite
Open or often
No sadness.
Send a song of bards,
Time opal as opera.
Muses!
Palinodes revered,
I ride, reversed on:
I lapse,
Sum a reposal ( a poem).
Its drab fog no sadness,
Send a sonnet for one poetic.”
--Anthony Etherin
(via)
Leave Your Sleep. (via Silliman)
"Neda"
ornament and useful both
shote doing roister towns · niqaap vIDaHa'
long highwire
haywire highway why
uproarious chide as adjunct they
yIvoq 'ach yI'ol youth's moor
champion; Deb rur
xunpalta cpana nabypau John
invites us
in Gadsby "not so much of summary" Whig
Qav charade
perfidulo torn black zodiac
mlechchha "ha' gone home" who took
"That gleam shone in Carthage." --Hichens
My specs, taped up, again resemble repaired.
My shoes slant where the heel's been ground away.
The hubbub in the hills gathers its strength
at wax of the moon, thereafter trickles away.
What one of us has graven on her blog
hovers a space, not long; then's tucked away.
The headlines catch a scrimmage on the wing,
count bodies strewn, let nascent shove it away.
Once this was where the fleeing sought their hope;
it's our turn now to shed, hope slipped away.
Saffron moon at dawn i'd have you delve
as i do, now my car gets towed away.
Graywyvern woned among green emmets whose veng
incurred deletion, while they moiled away.
"The Gods of SeaTac"
1.
i would have liked to do nothing the
straitening
attosecond orero
coupon weekend game
plan a language only of vowels
start the washer come
back in an hour and the clothes are still dry
wall flower thousand deep threat
bare bodkin
dull · sitdown beat nickel odium
song of the dwelling just one place
in a consonants-only language
2.
saffron moon at dawn
G P S with woman's voice
tells the river where
as we jolt through a school zone
watch my car in the mirror
"Many writers have felt, like Pound: Why not invent an art form that will permit me to put all my life, all my thoughts and feelings about the universe, directly into a work of art? But the trouble is, when they've invented it it isn't an art form." --Randall Jarrell
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield.
Three-Logic, finally, is not a syllogism but a response to the world. When ingrained, it takes the form of: a preference for triads in analysis, refusing to uphold tribal boundaries (Us vs. Them), "else also" in response to given dilemmas, an abiding sense of the mysteriousness of the world, and an unshakable faith of the validity of the imagination.
"Nor iris of the frail and lunar bow" -Smith
"Worry Bead Museum"
1.
collect pictures of breakage
tomorrow that will turn to structure
appreciation
that doesn't end in purchase
to have said something
lost on the solitary air
and goon saying
and watch it keep
2.
the cry went out
so i stood there
the call was for scissors
but i didn't care
tweezers not scissors
made the wrong kind of poet
in this epic debacle
who'd limn & intuit
some face for the gazers
& now they will goggle
tweezers not scissors
with scant honeyfuggle
O maybe it's banzu
but certainly chirg
in skugry to tweezer
a scissor's fey darg
Prophecy from 47 Ursae Majoris.
Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies.
"Closed Casket Days"
the same girl only red-haired
the part that i care about
was for you not to worrysmall pocket garden
in the land of bright neon apocalypse
which is just
the size of any meaning past or future
shards of self-hatred still
some deeply interior vision
leading perhaps
to insight perhaps not
i'm sorry
we are not responsible
for lost articles
compassion
for the people
in that place of torment
do they want it wrapped in rhetoric
in superstition in advertizing
this is not about your nunytcu
to have said something
among the land mines
& their brazen silences
"Some of the government agents and inquirers swore the ignorant populace did really believe that, with the discovery of a new Word, everything in the world would be explained. A wild pamphlet did actually appear, in which the writer argued with insane ingenuity that, as all modern publicity and popularization consist of concentrating a book into a paragraph, or a chapter into a sentence, so at last the whole truth about the present problem would be concentrated into a word. Crowds of impatient malcontents were adjured to Wait for the Word; and apocalyptic visions were provided, of the scenes of world-change that would follow, when once the Word was spoken. The Word would contain in itself, it was gravely asserted, a complete plan of operations and an explanation for the whole organized strategy of the revolt." --G K Chesterton, Four Faultless Felons (1930)
Thriving, struggling, suffering.
"...from 2005-2008 the Koch brothers pumped in double the amount that even Exxon spent on undermining climate action over the same period." (via Metafilter)
"In these more recent stories about Hissa Hilal, however, the framing suggests that what is important is not so much how she does what she does...but what she wears." And: "I have seen evil..."
"From Dream... To Reality"
1.
whether these troubles are over
in a hundred
or in a thousand years
songs of teenage lust
& the need to find a slant on the chaos
that looks seems like purpose
for an hour
or a day
just to get through that djedi
like i do
at times when these pluja thoughts
look like so many spinning ice floes to walk
headline crashes
teeth of the Symplegades
across on the path of the raging aurora borealis
2.
the stars are se gusni jipno
of leaves
in the dark ricygri of the sky
my love for you is the dark tsani
it's the burden i carry
so when you suffer i don't
is that it
it's not something we share?
could you not stay awake
for one hour?
is the hour up yet?
the dark furling
under pressure of the dawn
is that a kind of magic too?
tomorrow i will hardly
even walk crooked
through the tents of the refugees
and the refugee-dug latrines
3.
a dimness of noon
the interior castle
ending at a set time
as will this roll of complaints,
their triggers, & the whole noise
"When the animate powers that surround us are suddenly construed as having less significance than ourselves, when the generative earth is abruptly defined as a determinate object devoid of its own sensations and feelings, then the sense of a wild and multiplicitous otherness (in relation to which human existence has always oriented itself) must migrate, either into a supersensory heaven beyond the natural world, or else into the human skull itself--the only allowable refuge, in this world, for what is ineffable and unfathomable." --David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (1996)
Shhh. (I'm the dude with the hat & the sideburns :)...)
Cthulhoid snack-food.
Naming Fomalhaut b.
"Sonja had come to treasure poetry, during the long marches between flaming cities. On the deadly, broken roads of a China in chaos, in the teeming refugee camps, she had come to understand that a memorized poem was true wealth--it was a precious work of art, a possession that could not be burned or stolen." -Bruce Sterling, The Caryatids (2009)
Whose thoughts outrun the hour, enfold its tangles now;
snares, mapmaker's troth busily mining.
Catalogue of all-defunctive dreams & plans,
what comes next is born of proceeds from disgorges from other womb.
I learn, at last i learn & if i squint into
the road ahead, it is with stoic sharp clenched heart
that i continue where i hardly see, & a wind
of no well fine bodings pushes back my hair.
Smogpunk. (via Docbrite)
"...because there is no workstation
it does not see you. They must modify your life span." (via Silliman)
"ghIqtal"
you flee without a clue
of my role in the fray
nor know how much i do
to speed you on your way
O Hoürs where we win
or lose what can be won
the viewless paladin
alone with just a a rusty gun
and yet at times i still
hold teeming such escape
as calls the tribes of will
a rattling of crepe light crepe
"The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia."
"That midden of the stagnant nadir skies" --Smith
no snoozing tonight
giant mesh face sweet vanilla yogurt thwart
and envenom'd habitat
ratatat the thing is being done
ratatat
to the intimate horizon come
Crashsound, aye! & Eschaton
bleak regrets amidst
can't tell even to these porous battlements
up this will
be the intuition's news
lens pops out of my shades
and falls to the floor
of the tow truck cab
"With all the broken skulls, genocides, cut throats, black site torture chambers and mass graves in this world, the flies of American and Mexican media somehow chose these five heads, upon which to alight. It was the Styrofoam coolers of course."
Prepper thread.
"Swampsploitation"
Hattie's on the side of ecstatic
a hero-monster frets no more, eh?
corridor of crimson
thole the edged diversions
this is not your average vampire rock star novel
horrific penance imposed
noises in the walls
power tools through the ventilators
or a brick through the window?
sous-veillance
of the Smilometers
Panov fandango
indigo fontanelle aversive uffish...
hangman andaddressbook watching adjunct Mapsco infrared
Ogpu for wish until educate
rictus Ogpu homily
Tori + Maynard.
"Our Eyes Thirst for Bright Orange"
i see the water moving in the dark intersection
the shadow solider · than what casts it
to leave in die vain night ice acid
on hot pink paper write broad cerulean
until now
until the end of the world
dried up snail & the last birds calling
under this pewter dome
craquelure
craquelure chrome
these black bitter hills
my own Sanskrit was born in
like a torch
fuming without lazily
hate voyage like bright help golem ruin awash
push one pawn forward
you can't opt out
and the odds're against
and the sea is contrary
and we never knew why until now
until
the end of the world
Sheikh Mohammed explains what 'Nabatipopular' poetry is.
we say "there will"
(there and there will be no sea)
not "you will" or "i will"
and the specific gut-ache
of a certain day in a certain year
this machine fills karcists
on safari with Meep & Glibber
while this machine is to him
wrapped up in black wool
just sitting by a dim lamp
waiting for the drugs to take effect
departed am i who loathe the snow
of my summers
something like that
the lines blurring
as the pencil wears down
"I came across this tiny traditional looking café when walking through the Medina."
Red Hot Patriot.
"Words for Snow in Late March"
'It would shatter all writing pens.' --Rumi
1.
denialists' sapphire
not visible anywhere
it's broken
and it won't get fixed
now that's value
arrive sooner
at destitution
the snow on the hood piled
four inches thick
dateline Hobbesian gnosticism
tawaf Elvis
it would shatter all our writing pens
get it on the first ring
in the desert
you can remember your name
2.
catch it on the second ring
brindled fire
in which we see · fathoms past loneliness
the help that is sure to come
3.
tundra, chull, exurb sprawl
oxygen facial starveling hordes
starveling art & starveling song
why can't zombies get along
flagfallen fired-up ignoramuses
certain of their "Pi is Three"
pushing at the trough & wild
to choose the worse in ev'ry trial
i'm made as well by this mad world
nor scathe-free look at it from high
my rodeo clownship ends with this:
desiring more at each witdimpse
4.
relentless queue while over & over
someone's being paged
Na'vi follow-up.
"Breakage High & Low"
'And strains from ruinous viols flown' --Smith
still half immersed in some pluperfect sleep
erasing for awhile viol-troubled day
i rise & hear beyond our mortgaged keep
thunder that means to stay
though one oblivion's purchase wasn't cheap
here in the gloom another's pending sway
draws with the force of dream and dreamless gray
remorse my trickle & seep
i bring to birth term echo & ricochet
of what's already lost; dissolute clay
begins to creep
from the drab cacophonous heap
clay, & a breathing more than mine
Scarlet Music.
"Let’s consider what the President would have to say to the American people if he decided to tell them the truth in no uncertain terms..." (via Kunstler)
Meanwhile, in other poetries... (via Silliman)
No more ACORN. (via Metafilter)
"Essential Tremors"
1.
and maybe there are
discrete acts of violence
which punctuate
the imaginary slide
things in this house that don't work
impetus fallen
alien ultion silk town sprocket
festering stark
tulpa · psalmwards of gastropod ill-ultimate
next antic faster slouch
with next antic summit alien
stark silk font
of Asgard Branton
2.
i see the water moving in the dark intersection
erasing for awhile this troubled day
golden the street grayish blue beyond the trees
very fake looking
i hadn't expected that
British Racing Green, and rust
after awhile the colors seem the name of something
if i weren't unable to say what i have learned
taillight glow appears in the dark
beyond the rain-scrambled glass
backing up and why not
did i mention the cold
wrapped up as i am in shards of sweets
"In what lies the arachnidity of formlessness?"
"If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years."
"I'll notify the Texas board of Education at once."
yogurt drying on the spoon
bricks mostly straw
confirmation
number of the beast
misshapen
lifelong ignorance
wellbeing only as deep
as the warmth from this cup
path ending
abruptly in the autumn woods
"But I think that none of the possible identity positions in themselves, whether regional, sexual, racial or class based, no matter how non-normative they could seem in terms of centrist positions and their programmatic exclusion from those centres, is any guarantee of a particular subversion of genre." (via Silliman)
"Of course, the loss of our troops (over 4,200 dead and 30,000 wounded) and treasure (three trillion dollars according to economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz), the perversion of our language, the mangling of our laws, the broken bodies and tortured brains of our veterans really bear no comparison with the suffering we have inflicted on the citizens of Iraq."
Gliese 710.
"Elasticities"
dark states and entanglement
streets wasted · in the strong accord
strictly random · i describe forms
i embrace corrupt practice
as signifying something
from the later, well documented
portion of his career
places closed that will not reopen
bare trees in the cold sun
time for enhancing those skills
roar
of somewhere a motor
one route the less
available
"Typhoid runs the following course."
"Tlalocan"
“…Or where the stark roof-tree
Of a burnt home blackened and sear lies dark,
Betwixt the gaunt-ribbed ruin, hast thou seen
The rose of peace…” --Sydney Dobell, Balder: Part the First (1854)
Driving on a drizzly morning, I hear “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix and idly wonder whence its building triumph derives. It’s a dirge, but a dirge of victory. Surely not for unpunished murder?
“The black swan of trespass on alien waters” --Ern Malley
There are layers here. First, the blues song. You can sense a bedrock here compounded of guilt and remorse, for which the indirect narrative only partly accounts. This darkness might stem from alcoholism or some other social abjection; however, its meaning has been lost by the time the Sixties rolled through and took from the Blues more inflection than innuendo.
“Departed am I who loathe the snow/ of my summers” --Robot X, 1627.
That stark plot, which forms fugitive agency out of its confrontation between two codes—civil law and the ego’s law of possessiveness—stands for a more timely opposition, known then and for decades thereafter by the name of “Counterculture.”
“ ‘Playful or rude. That’s the difference between good chaos and bad chaos…’ ” --Lyda Morehouse, Messiah Node (2003)
And in the moment of Hendrix’s rendition, the Counterculture was finding itself numerous, visibly other, and martial with its flower power trinity of free love, rock ‘n’ roll, and sacramental marijuana.
“The Jabberwock will set his jaw a notch
And vaguely chew Cuchulain for a day.” --Jack Spicer
Listening to it now, I can’t help but be reminded that the mechanism of commercial radio supplying me with this very anthem, piercing the ether as comfort music for ageing Boomers wracked with bright-minted apocalypse at the deliquescence of their unprecedented privilege, gives that revolution the lie.
“In our house of lamentation
We light the candle from the lightning.” --Mirza Ghalib
Yet consumerism has failed to extinguish that part of urban nomadics later dubbed “the homeless”: and no longer triumphant, but given back to its first grief, the old song claims new poignancy in the hour of its return.
“I do not want / a leg, I want/ a floor” --Robot X, 1038.
Gwyneth Jones, in her 2004 novel Life, talks about being “elective refugees.” To see plain causality, to know Peak Oil, and to interpret our common unstoppable future, is to set oneself apart from the religion of the state, is to turn off the opiate of the masses and to step outside, under a rather troubled sky; entering into his gnosis without deliverance, you drop a caste, you cease to count in the vote on who gets to keep playing the game or game of games. You are here on sufferance. Call it dhimmitude.
“Later times may again live in palaces. Ours is the founding time, the time of tents. It makes no sense to build palaces today, since no people exist for whom it would be appropriate to live in them.” --Stefan George
That term, which originally signalized a clemency toward religious dissidence unknown in the medieval West, was recently resurrected by Bat Ye’or to describe a paranoid fantasy of being enslaved by the creeping tide of Islam; in other words, the richest by the poorest of the poor. (So might an Afghan tribesman’s curse bring down the jet bearing “smart” munitions.)
“the occiput which rolls is ecstatic” --Javant Biarujia
But as there is no corresponding word for the state of being a Muslim in Christian society, so must this term also serve, by ineluctable metonymy, for its mirror-twin: and we who feel this condition and know it for our own, might just as well pass for Mozarabs, as try to remain neutrally non-Consumer.
“Sugar is not a vegetable.” --Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
I am concerned above all with remaining a writer outside of the writing scenes. (One way or another materially I’ll pull through.) This cannot be done without a stance, a practice, that is more than just fashionably rebellious.
“A poet almost has to invent his own land and then has to defend it.” --Spicer
There’s no nourishment in the pose, and of course the real transgression will out: your cancer sun, your indifference to the threat of having to walk somewhere.
“And do not heed those fools who say that these Companions were expert calligraphers and that their errors are only apparent, having a symbolical hidden meaning…” --Ibn Khaldun, in: An Arab Philosophy of History, ed & tr Charles Issawi (1950)
“BUT the Future is only dark from outside. Leap into it—and it EXPLODES with Light.” --Mina Loy
“If you’ll exchange, I’ll give to you
Bokhara—yes! and Samarcand.” --Hafiz, Wine for a Breaking Heart (tr Richard Le Gallienne, 1903)
" 'Islâm--the very word means the surrender of the human will to the will of God,' said Count Anteoni. 'That word and its meaning lie like the shadow of a commanding hand on the soul of every Arab, even of the absinthe-drinking renegades one sees here and there who have caught the vices of their conquerors. In the greatest scoundrel that the Prophet's robe covers there is an abiding and acute sense of necessary surrender. The Arabs, at any rate, do not buzz against their Creator, like midges raging at the sun in whose beams they are dancing.' " --The Garden of Allah
"Perfect Patience"
foregone
on the polluted air
such conditions as
been gauss dragon dragon the wings and
knowing so
much and so little
how possibly map this changes little else
foregone dust
whose boots aren't made for walking
and my perfect patience fries
carving, like farseeing smoke
blurring
someone that small
Why Paint Cats?
"El Area 51"
A frost of unsatisfactory
whirling passes and fails
tumor atlas
the child whose face wouldn't twitch
when walked across by flies
Borg Buddha
the fundamental
questionability
of precrime methodology
rain beating
on the high skylight
a hundred intervening
feet of semidarkness
leaving in a storm
leaving what you know
leaving what you've learned
to accept as reality
whirling the fundamental
questionability
of precrime methodology
"But even if art and poetry have no use, it does not follow that they have no value." --Chesterton
A House in Fez.
"The first rap single ...contained an entire verse, rapped by Big Bank Hank, that was in fact written entirely by another rapper..."
"Frozen Dead Man Days"
1.
siamese squids
cities before & after
their famous disaster
skip
the chapters in your travel guide
accordingly
glow in the pewter sky
circular
i hear a dim twittering i look
the dark trees
on both sides full of birds
i hear through the rolled up windows
and my radio
2.
mem'ries of being cold
pellder
at the people struck by lightning convention
the sky becoming paler
but still dark
above the deserted industrial park
its asphault and its stalled cars
and my path traced there
repeatedly
like a sound only i can hear
gold
at the mouth of the tunnel
Uncle Andy's.
Steampunk Chronology. (via Beyond the Beyond)
"I sent this little book...to two publishers, one conservative, one liberal. The conservative one politely turned it down, though it had come recommended by a leading conservative intellectual. The liberal one offered me a contract and sent me a small advance. The publisher, however, overruled her very liberal editors because she found ideas in the book that she could not stomach."
The New Dropout Economy. (via Beyond the Beyond)
"Old Spider After Shave"
drones pursue
what psychic ability tarries
in Reich Carcosa
buns for gutter probably
computer-generated random tattoos
and halcyon spent looking days
full of orpiment
and forward only and engraved fedora
my disease steadily improving
t'ward sorrow
John Pascuzzi thread.
"Maybe we don’t understand the sensual—the literal use of our senses, because we no longer have a food or physical culture much connected to the—empirical, to a tangible reality. (Is that the right way to put it?). This is why things like psychoanalysis, meditation, or fertility seem magical, mystical to us. They are so at odds with our rootless versions of sex and eating, which are decreasingly tethered to our own senses, which in turn are decreasingly tethered to the natural world."
I Wish I Knew How To Quit You, Pluto.
"The new baseline statement and the BPFK have done incalculable damage to the project..."
In response to this, i wrote: "this is good but it disregards an essential difference between kinds of people.
the models would not be the same for introverts & extraverts; & i suspect that each of the 16 Jungian types has its own specific social needs.
because the types are not equally prevalent, the more common ones’ needs drown out the perceptibility of the needs of the less common types (some are 100 times more common than others).
you might rather look at it from the point of view of the ideal tribe, which would (say) have one of the very least common types, but no more than their fair number of the most common types; but what happens in today’s world, is a mediated sorting-out of like with like, so that grossly unbalanced tribes form, with a consensus that is biased toward things it is easy for those of that type to believe.
this is how we end up so deluded en masse."
Build Your Own Army of Web Bots Within 24 Hours.
"But when the movie people actually made a film called I, Robot, the story that was filmed had nothing to do with Isaac’s actual stories but was something written and published by another writer, and all they used of Isaac’s work was the title and the Three Laws. Neither of which had been his." (via Metafilter)
M John Harrison responds to Elmore Leonard's list with a list of his own.
"The moment he wants to reform the others, the mystic sinks into a mire of degradation and becomes the moral reformer." --Chesterton
Now in an affordable edition--!
Black: Dion Nicolaas 2006
1. Na3 e5
2. Nc4 Nc6
3. e4 Nf6
4. d3 d6
5. Bg5 Be7
6. c3 O-O
7. Ne3 Be6
8. Qc2 d5
9. Bxf6 Bxf6
10. exd5 Bxd5
11. Be2 Bg5
12. Nf3 Bxe3
13. fxe3 Qe7
14. c4 Be6
15. O-O Qc5
16. Qd2 Rad8
17. Ng5 Bxc4
18. Rac1 Qd5
19. Rfd1 Bb5
20. Qc3 Qxa2
21. Bf3 f6
22. Ra1 Rxd3
23. Rxd3 Qxa1+
24. Rd1 Qa5
25. Qb3+ Kh8
26. Nf7+ Kg8
27. Nh6+ Kh8
28. Qg8+ Rxg8
29. Nf7 mate.
"China wrecked the Copenhagen deal..."
(via)
Michael Jackson's bodyguards
is there anything you want to say to his children
don't take candy from strangers
furious rainstorm maybe some hail
the answers multiply
find the red pen that was lost
dark clouds
in front of bright clouds
i miss the monorail
like a shard of some other future
left here by mistake
shards i collect
and sculpt
into things that could not exist
"And the toad turned into a robot." (via Supergee)
"She added that Duc’s death was not even 'self-sufficient' because he had to use 'imported gasoline'."
(pic via)
"...an orangutan named Chantek...anthropologist Lyn Miles () raised him as a signing infant from the age of nine months, rearing him as much as possible like a human child. Lyn toilet-trained Chantek and gave him chores, like cleaning his room, and an allowance. (His favorite thing to spend it on is fast food from McDonald's. ...If he's granted legal rights, as Lyn would like him to be, he could join the fast-food class-action lawsuit and become not just the most verbal but the richest orang in the world....)" --Antonetta (also here)
the venom passing
out of the sunset
like an overlong Hall & Oates cover
by someone you can't quite identify
Ah, Love, let us be true
as darkness takes the street
and traffic does not yet abate
but we start to breathe easier anyway
it could be these city walls will hold
till siege & grief are alike lifted
we both know better
trying not to act like it
because that's what you do isn't it
when you don't know the way & you can't stop
"Chantek calls himself an 'Orangutan Person'. Untaught orangutans, like his cagemate Sibu, he's given the rather snide name of 'orange dog'." --ibid
More Primate Poetics. (Including Gilgamesh in lexigrams.)
"One of his literary friends said that The Emperor is the most important Polish novel of the 20th century!" (via)
"Chantek was the first orangutan to do a live Web chat."
(via)
"One of Trouble's Kittens"
the archives fill
earthgrythe
row of cars
idling in the rain
a soft rustling
behind the steel door
a cold glow in the west
has thrown the wheel-tossed spray into bright relief
i nurse a shiver
like catacombs many centuries deep
"David Dennett, a consciousness theorist, famously said that scholars are a library's way of making another library." --Antonetta
Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis.
Long pdf (via Silliman) on the importance of Kent Johnson.
(via wood_s lot)
"Nabokov said Oppenheimer was Callas...and the rest of us were just honest singers." -Lowell, op cit
"As the most prevalent UAV on the planet, with more than 7,000 units in service, you’d be hard pressed to find any Army combat brigade in Afghanistan or Iraq that doesn’t have one." (via Beyond the Beyond)
Reading Trash, a book of stories by Dorothy Allison, which reminds me of that admirable & now Oscar-rewarded film The Hurt Locker. What they share is a certain matter-of-fact unflinchingness in the face of terrible destruction--a quality i don't usually think of as feminine, but in this juxtaposition it makes sense. And seeing this, i realize how so much of what male writers & filmmakers have done, whether about war, or its less spectacular counterpart poverty, suffers from rhetoric, inflation, sentimentality. (Even the conventional litotes of war-reporting is, deep down, only another kind of sentimentalism.) You have to go back to the Icelandic Sagas, i think, to find male writers (if they were in fact male) who could be as objective on the subject of war; and i don't know where you can find them, on the subject of poverty... Yet so much of human life on our sad planet is passed in one or the other climate, or both. Shouldn't art reflect this?
Ne estos similaj unu al
la alia with
such an eye la logxantoj de la
fajro kaj la
logxantoj opportunity knocks
de la Paradizo fall
to · creamy
skies unravelling
last Tivo show as i lift the trash
its inconsequential racket echoing
is earth sitting judgment on man
no
not even that
make us stronger
in our danger
the violence
against self
big bites vanish
out of my time
or i am jumped forward
by a lucky roll on the game board
nobody else besides me
has got ten boxes of backup
the night stretches endless
like a highway with no turnoffs
beauty even in the way
light falls across an alley
Metafilter thread on Euler's Formula. Also: Number gossip.
Melanie's Oscar Wrap-Up:
"So history was made last night at the Oscars, not only with the selection of the first ever female winner for Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker), but also the first time an African-American has ever won one of the two Oscars for screenwriting—in this case, Geoffrey Fletcher, for adapting Precious (based on the novel Push by Sapphire). Furthermore, and just to be absolutely clear, The Hurt Locker is also the first Best Picture winner to be directed by a woman. Bigelow’s win in one category certainly did not portend success in another; after all, not every film that wins Best Picture wins Best Director. It was only a few years ago, for example, that Ang Lee won Best Director for Brokeback Mountain, the presumed Best Picture frontrunner, but the big prize ultimately went to Crash. Likewise, Barbra Streisand (The Prince of Tides, 1991), Randa Haines (Children of a Lesser God, 1986), and Penny Marshall (Awakenings, 1990) are women who directed Best Picture nominees without the benefit of being nominated themselves, which makes it all the more interesting that Streisand herself was chosen to present Bigelow's historic win. Now, even though I think The Hurt Locker is an amazingly well done movie, and even though I applaud the Academy’s choice, I’m still troubled by the fact that a woman had to direct a war movie in order to be given props by her peers in the Academy’s directors’ branch. I think that shows some kind of weird bias. Of course, skeptics and cynics will no doubt scoff about my misgivings and remind me, along with everyone else, that Bigelow won because she made the best possible film, and not because she was, and is, a woman. Of course, I understand that much, but I also understand that people who operate from positions of privilege, such as the presumably and predominately white, heterosexual males who comprise the Academy’s directors' division, no doubt carry around certain cultural or social biases that affect the way they look at a film, and the way they vote for Oscars. Well, that’s my two cents. That noted, Bigelow has always, always, been an incredible visual stylist whose films have long favored a kind of macho sensibility (per high octane surf dudes as bank robbers epic Point Break) over the potent female sexuality of , say, Jane Campion's The Piano. Maybe with Bigelow's victory, the doors will be open for more diverse entertainments at Oscar’s table—but not so fast. After all, it’s been 9 years since Halle Berry broke decades of indifference to African-American leading actresses and took home the Oscar for Best Actress…but what has really changed in the film world since then? I mean, Gabourey Sidibe, the amazing newcomer at the center of Precious is still the first African-American actress nominated as a lead actress since Berry’s historic win. (Nine years!!!) It’s not the fault of the Academy, per se, that Hollywood as a whole still doesn’t know how to make thoughtful, successful movies driven by African-American women, Atlanta-based Tyler Perry notwithstanding. And, yes, it’s also time for more African-American filmmakers to be recognized as well.
Now, in my Oscar Dossier I certainly indicated that Fletcher's script for Precious was a spoiler in the making (if I didn’t, I certainly meant to), but I was sure that Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner were a lock for Up in the Air. I’m happy for Fletcher because I just couldn't embrace Reitman’s film even though I know it had all the hallmarks of a typical, middle of the road Oscar success story (mid-life crisis and everything). I think the most interesting thing is that Up in the Air, such a darling of the critics and a moderate box office hit, went home empty handed. Zero, zilch, over and out, and that brings me to my next point. We won’t know for a few days whether the move to expand the roster of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10 pays off in a ratings spike (the impact the box office was nil, according to most reports), but look at how the race played out: of the 10 nominees for Best Picture, only six (The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Precious, The Blind Side, Up, and Inglourious Basterds) actually won trophies, while the remaining four (A Serious Man, An Education, District 9, and Up in the Air) went home with nothing, which seems kind of embarrassing to me…and I know, btw, that District 9 has its fans, and I know it’s supposed to be a cinematic metaphor for apartheid, but I still think it looked ridiculously out of place among the Best Picture nominees (and, to clarify, yes, I actually saw it—finally).
I also wonder what the aftermath will be because the Oscar for Best Picture went to a movie that has been so little seen—the lowest grossing Best Picture winner in several years. Of course, box-office dollars don’t always equal quality film going (but what is quality film going, anyway? Who can define it).Nonetheless, here’s what I know: if the ABC network and the Academy dreamed up this plan to create a slate of 10 Best Picture winners in order to make room for more blockbusters, and possibly attract a younger generation of moviegoers to the party (after The Dark Knight and Wall-e were passed over last year), I can’t help but wonder how the fact that Avatar, the biggest blockbuster of all time was all but ignored will play-out among that very demographic. Maybe they'll be convinced, now more than ever, that the Oscars are nothing but an elitist shell game, or some other form of claptrap, and vow to never watch again. On the other hand, perhaps the win for Bigelow's film will work wonders and prompt all new interest in the film, thereby spiking an interest in the DVD.
Of course, there was a time when the critics, the public, and the Academy were all pretty much on the same page…I think the disconnect began in the 1980’s (1984, specifically, when all 5 Best Picture nominees were hovering around the 30 million mark at the box office when the nominations were announced…not a blockbuster in the bunch, though Amadeus ended up enjoying an increase in ticket sales), but others might argue that split began earlier, either in the 1960's or 1970's. With all that in mind, I thought it was refreshing that Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for such a hugely commercial film as The Blind Side. Of course, not everyone loves The Blind Side. Indeed, some critics (like a writer in Entertainment Weekly) have taken the movie to task because it isn’t 100% truthful to the original source material...but that might be beside the point. The story onscreen is essentially true, and there’s something in the movie that people respond to, and they respond to it in droves; moreover, it seems like it’s been forever and ever since a leading actress, or leading actor, for that matter, won an Oscar for a movie that was/is so massively, massively popular. Even Reese Witherspoon's Oscar winning Walk the Line, as much of a hit as it was, only pulled in about half the take of The Blind Side. No, Bullock’s win is a very good thing indeed (and I don’t even like using the word 'very') because it may very (!) well restore some moviegoers’ faith in not only the Academy, but in Tinseltown’s ability to make a wonderful, uplifting movie about real people—and, yes, much of that credit belongs to Sandra Bullock. Of course, skeptics will say Bullock’s performance lacks the weight, the big, heavy, meaty, dramatic scenes of which Oscar winners are made—and I say, thank god! Nothing about the performance seemed rigged to garner awards (Jeff Bridges, are you listening). Instead, the beauty of Bullock’s performance is how natural, unforced, and/or unaffected it seems…as though she’s making it up as she goes. Oh, and I loved her speech, her heartfelt tribute to her mother. I also thought it was amazing that under all that pressure to be deliver a memorable and fitting Oscar speech, she could go back and forth from being earnest and gracious to being laughout loud funny and cracking wise about Meryl Streep. Oh, and what a lovely touch that the real life Tuohy family was there to cheer her success.
I have always been a huge fan of Jeff Bridges, and was pleased to the tips of my toes 25 years ago when he was nominated for Starman, a movie that struggled to find an audience (though his nomination ultimately helped), but as happy as I am for last night's victory. I still think Crazy Heart is second rate. I like Bridges too much to hold a grudge, and, yes, his speech, in which he paid tribute to his parents (including the deceased Lloyd Bridges) and his longtime wife, was touching, but the movie—even with all that great music—seemed too calculated, too much a retread of movies like Tender Mercies and The Wrestler, for me to take seriously. Plus, is it just me, or is Jeff starting to look and sound more like his brother Beau? Oh, and Jeff, the Coen brothers remake of True Grit, with you in the role of Rooster Cogburn, which won John Wayne his only competitive Oscar sound like a horrible idea. Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet seen Morgan Freeman in Invictus, or Colin Firth in A Single Man, what are you waiting for? (Besides the British Academy equivalent, Firth also won the Venice Film Festival award for his performance.)
To the surprise of almost no one, Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for Inglourious Basterds. I liked his quip that an Oscar and Penelope Cruz combo was like uber-bingo! His speech was humble, not too gushy, a little funny, and mercifully brief. Of course, Waltz is obviously a gifted actor—that much his evident from his Oscar winning performance—but I still have problems with both the concept of his character and Inglourious Basterds in general. I completely get the whole freedom of speech thing…I mean, yes, I’m a proud American, but I think a movie that trivializes—even rewrites—history, especially the Holocaust and World War II, the way that Inglourious Basterds does, should be treated skeptically, and not necessarily positioned for awards consideration. After all, The Blind Side is being targeted for fudging the facts, but almost nobody is lashing out at Inglourious Basterds for rewriting a crucial episode ion world history for cryin' out loud!. Indeed, even Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin felt comfortable enough to make jokes about the Oscars being “Jew central” when referring to Waltz’s Nazi character, more aptly described as a Jew hunter. Really? Really? Really, really, really?
Best Supporting Actress winner Mo'Nique (Precious) deserved that standing ovation…I loved the gardenias in her upswept hair-do. Her remark about paying more attention to the performance rather than the politics refers to her well-documented refusal to do a lot of hobnobbing and schmoozing on the Oscar circuit, meaning making the round of cocktail parties, movie premieres, granting every interview request, etc. Instead, Mo'Nique did her part to promote the film when it opened, but she ignored the advice of publicists, managers, agents and other studio personnel who believed she needed to campaign for the award—and good for her. The performance was simply the real deal, and all anyone needed to do to be convinced was to watch the film. I also found it touching that this many decades later, Mo'Nique took time to pay tribute to legendary Hattie McDaniel (Best Supporting Actress, for 1939’s Gone with the Wind).
So those are the big awards. Even though I have taken The Princess & the Frog to heart, I was nonetheless pleased that Up won the award for Best Animated Feature…and why not? It’s a beautifully made film: visually rich and inventive and such a wonderful sense of storytelling. Actually, the best thing for me was that the film’s composer Michael Giacchino won an Oscar. I loved that score…thought it was the perfect musical complement to the onscreen action, and actually made a note to myself last summer when I saw the movie in a theatre to remember the music when Oscar time came. Also, Giacchino has been a fave of my ever since The Incredibles, a film for which he was shockingly not nominated. I also loved, loved, loved, those incredible costumes by Sandy Powell in The Young Victoria. That noted, I think Powell’s approach, at least initially, was less than gracious…what was it, exactly? “I already have two of these.” Ultimately, however, Powell turned it around by acknowledging how often the Academy overlooks the costume element in movies with contemporary settings, so good for her.
Miley Cyrus and Amanda Syfried made an interesting pair—pretty enough, but they almost looked like little girls playing dress up in oversized ball gowns—and Miley looked slightly uncomfortable…something about her posture was skewed. It was nice to see T-Bone Burnett get an Oscar for his song from Crazy Heart, not just because of the song itself, but because the Academy had almost no way, a few years back, to honor the amazing soundtrack he produced for the Coens' O Brother Where Art Thou? Of course, that soundtrack eventually won the Grammy for Album of the Year, but it seemed odd that it was never recognized by the Academy—nor was Burnett’s work on the soundtrack for Walk the Line. So, this year’s Oscar is a nice touch, and even though I found Crazy Heart underwhelming, the music was solid. On that same wardrobe note, Zoe Saldana and Carey Mulligan looked beautiful, but like Cyrus and Seyfried, they also looked like girls playing dress-up—girls playing dress up and having a really, really hard time navigating the stairs, especially Saldana—I love the top of her gown, all sparkly and periwinkle…not so crazy about the overworked train.
I thought that some of the presenters for the clips of Best Picture nominees were inspired: Ryan Reynolds, Bullock’s The Proposal co-star, was on-hand to introduce the clip of Best Picture nominee, The Blind Side; Ah, nice touch…asking John Travolta to introduce the clip of Best Picture nominee Inglourious Basterds, since Travolta’s once languishing career received a huge boost from Tarantino's Pulp Fiction; Why was Jeff Bridges of all people presenting the clip of Best Picture nominee A Serious Man? Bridges is now soooo identified with The Big Lebowski, from the Coens; Ah, Keanu Reeves presenting the clip for The Hurt Locker. Of course, he co-starred with the late Patrick Swayze in Bigelow's Point Break; Kathy Bates, aka Molly Brown in Titanic, introducing the clip to Avatar.
I also found it fitting, so to speak, that former fashion designer turned director Tom Ford was paired with Sarah Jessica Parker, long considered a fashion plate thanks to Sex and the City, in order to present Best Costume Design. Also, how brilliant was it to pair Tina Fey with Robert Downey Jr. to present Best Original Screenplay, what with all the good-natured kidding about writers, which Fey most definitely is, versus actors. Mercifully, the winner for Best Original Screenplay was Mark Boal, for The Hurt Locker. It’s interesting that Boal is a former reporter who wrote about what he saw in Iraq as a reporter—and so touching that he thanked his father who passed away about a month ago. The reason I use the word mercifully is because I was so scared that Quentin Tarantino was about to win for Inglourious Basterds. Even though Boal had been considered the frontrunner early on, Tarantino’s name began popping up as a spoiler. Well, I’m sorry, but that just would have been wrong. (On the other hand, I highly recommend 2008’s Valkyrie to anyone who’s interested in learning about a real-life plot to assassinate Hitler.)
OMG!!! Molly Ringwald (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink) and Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) in person to introduce a tribute to John Hughes—and joined by the likes of Anthony Michael Hall (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, and Weird Science), Jon Cryer (Pretty in Pink), Judd Nelson (Breakfast Club), Ally Sheedy (Breakfast Club) and Maculay Culkin (Home Alone). I would have liked to have seen a few more, such as Andrew McCarthy (Pretty in Pink), Emilio Estevez (Breakfast Club), Eric Stoltz (Some Kind of Wonderful), and Mary Stuart Masterson (Some Kind of Wonderful).
I thought the Neil Patrick Harris opening number was tasteless—and, worse, not even funny. That noted, I enjoyed Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as hosts, but I thought the funniest bit of the evening was Ben Stiller in all that blue makeup, poking fun at Avatar. Avatar is a big enough hit, and Cameron with all his box office success (Titanic and Avatar, don't forget) and Oscars, ought to be big enough to take a joke—especially about a movie starring blue-skinned creatures who don’t speak English. I especially liked the jab the winner of the Best Foreign Language Film award also made at Avatar’s expense (that is, the Academy not considering the language of Avatar as foreign). Hilarious! I was slightly disappointed that The White Ribbon did not win the latter, by the way. Truthfully, I haven’t seen it yet, but it is on my agenda for this week. My disappointment comes from almost a year of keeping up with the movie since the Cannes Film Fest (where it won the Golden Palm), and being blown away by the trailer.
Okay, who wins Best Dressed honors? I think Sandra Bullock, all slinky and sparkly and looking every inch an Oscar winner…and perhaps even an actual Oscar. I also loved Penelope Cruz in a strapless burgundy ballgown; Queen Latifah, gorgeously curvy in a jewel encrusted lavender gown; Sigourney Weaver in dramatic red (chiffon?) with one of the biggest, most dramatic brooches I’ve ever seen; Cameron Diaz, looking just like a Hollywood princess (with Veronica Lake locks) and a full ballgown. Jennifer Lopez's gown was a little over the top, but she owned it, so that's cool. The color of the evening seemed to be blue: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mo'Nique, and Gabourey Sidibe (who was looking more and more like the upset in the event of Bullock-Streep split). Worst dressed? Sorry, Charlize…homecoming mums belong in high school, not pinned to bosoms on Oscar night...that noted, the color was fetching—and her hair and makeup were flawless. And I, for one, was not thrilled with Sarah Jessica Parker’s yellow Chanel number.
If I have a beef at all, it is with Avatar being awarded the Oscar for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. I mean, I 'get' that whether virtual or actual, the sets still had to be designed, and I understand that there were some partial sets constructed to help the actors get into character, but the bulk of the work was computer-generated and the logistics are different for that kind of effect as opposed to sets that have to be constructed from scratch, and must be user/camera friendly, or even the possibly greater feat of reconfiguring an existing space. The designer of virtual sets has a whole different set of criteria, so the Academy dropped the ball on this one. Other than that, I'm basically good to go.
Thanks for your consideration,
Mp
PS: I still don't know why that very loud woman interrupted the man who was accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Short. Yeesh, no manners. No manners."
Briefs, Stories for the Palm of the Mind. (via Silliman) (While Gwyneth Jones has been offering free pdfs of her books via her blog.)
"The truth is that our school-girls and spinsters wander down the lanes with Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer under their arms; or if they carry Tennyson, Longfellow, and Morris, read them in the light of spectrum analysis, or test them by the economics of Mill and Bain.' --Victorian Poetry
"Night Without Poppies"
1.
should we not rather embrace
the beauty of the deserts to come?
deserts of North America, deserts of Africa
deserts of fucking Europe
fire up the Krups
2.
the fixed stars
have not spoken
the ocean is a desert with the life
lack of immediate panic
slip back into dreamland
3.
forgotten downloads
and one more song to sing
tracing the paths
of atomies
warmth left in the empty teacup
its graph of departure
roj'oH rojqoq'e'
"I could easily envisage the Mass Pike empty of cars with mulleins and sumacs popping through fissures in the pavement, and sheets of aluminum on the vacant Big Box stores flapping rhythmically in the wind, and something entirely new going on in the hills and valleys along the way, where people labored to bring forth new life."
Empty Lives.
"No One Wants To Help You"
jalopy of up sharp · thus thieves arrive
in my sleep · providing
and a halo · around the moon
jalopy of down
it · emerges nidor · now strangely
metal drink blunt droppings
strategic objective
soul croak para-child abandoned
how thick
can the afternoon light be
desert slide voice
people wanting to buy
the decorations
cryptic soft
look for the smallest key
drawn from book to book like stepping
from ice floe to ice floe
same particulate-tinged
air such aversion
to constructive mot movement
telepath croak
in this pluperfect adversity
rafydra
sand mandala
runic desert
not like me
find where the mail has been left
Alien Attends Michael Jackson Memorial Service.
Russia Preparing the Russian Sheeple for a Fake Alien Encounter.
"For the first time the mystery that coils like a great black serpent in the shining heart of the East startled and fascinated her, a mystery in which indifference and devotion mingle. The white figure swayed slowly to and fro, carrying the dull, humming voice with it, and now she seemed to hear a far-away fanaticism, the bourdon of a fatalism which she longed to understand." --Robert Hichens, The Garden of Allah (1904)
"Going By Helsem Way"
zhalx doloroso
flayed mariachi sculpture
this smoke is sweet
in the nostrils of the God of War
a high-pitched whirring
from the car next to me
like a neighbor's cancer
i suddenly know about
in the spring sunshine
in the glorious sunshine of spring
They Don't Know.
"Were 'In Memoriam' written in direct quatrains, I think the effect would grow to be unendurable." --Edmund Clarence Stedman, Victorian Poets (1889)
The Next Mona Lisa?
"crapu"
deserted intersection at night
far from home
waiting for the light
thieves arrive in my sleep
and a halo
around the moon
the walls shiver
shimmer
i have nothing
but this moment to hold
thieves
take it as i watch
"He waited while the appointed whisperers repeated the words, the hall filled, it seemed, with the sound of a breeze." --Daniel Abraham, A Betrayal in Winter (2007)
Exquisitely futile are the books
men write to say what they know of God.
It matters to them ever so much
their words be thought to harbor truth.
When i deny this vain presumption
it's to draw a line between
the folly that a fall may cure
and that which nothing can redeem
"Writing books--piling new narratives onto each one's internal mythical narrative--is a kind of surplus killing." --Susan Antonetta
"Changing counsel inside lightning"
1.
powder blue neckties
mocha frappé chiller
from Merlin sleep the cry cry of the Regulus
fate looms bright what's one more sorrow thorn
they're only made of clay
to love
some of the things she loves
the morning light so corrosive
i can barely stand to see
2.
the beginning of a story
that can contain
this too
the sound of a breeze
a la nue accablante
cube
storage of all my songs
chrome or pewter
heft it
years will not destroy
3.
the value of π will be three
should a machine say goodbye?
champion of light
and a soft sound of morning rain occult
backs off from the decree making it legal
lakh Hekla
illáh Allá Hallí
Jack Myers tribute in Espejo.
The Philosophy of Punk Rock Mathematics.
"Qibla"
with meek alabaster he begins
clang dormant mustard
despair in the morning of theocracy
so called drug
anthology and dead hand
spray thrown up only
edge mustered
toe hold and bitter return
from the shadows a warning whisper
in this spiralling but immaculate cube
suddenly mistrustful of the soap
talking squid frontier
this mimics
"It's pleasant to have an art that can never make money or much sensation; then in dry times it hardly seems to exist." --Robert Lowell, op cit
"Autistic Gnosticism"
unusual illusions lie
talking squids in outer space
the sound of bent fabric
the roaring of a crane
gray finality gray the source
whirring as the planes enclose
and we, who always sought to save,
find ourselves destroying signs
the Negaverse
in crisis
in search of religious cooties
surrounded by books
wanting less & less to write one
picking up an old anthology
i should have been included in
How to split up the US. (via Silliman)
"...a relentless poet, dying and awake, howling a shattering song that contains us all." (via Poetry Hut)
